Washington, D.C.-- Over 120 examples of anti-gay religious right hate speech
are chronicled on a new Web site, published today by Wired Strategies. The
archive, part of the larger Matthew Shepard Online Resources site, is a
free resource to counter fundamentalist assertions that their vocal
campaign against the civil rights of gay Americans is simply a "message of
love."

The site: www.wiredstrategies.com/hate.html includes quotes from
Pat Robertson of the 700 Club, Southern Baptist preacher, Jerry Falwell, Gary Bauer's Family Research Council, the American Family Association, and other extremist quasi-religious/ political activists.

Pat Robertson

Hyperlinks are provided to speech on "family values" Web sites, which still host many of
the most demeaning anti-gay references. Aravosis hopes the site will help visitors get involved by providing links for them to email examples of hate speech to national and local media.

In addition, the site chronicles the quotes of Dr. Paul Cameron, a
now-discredited scientist, whose extreme views on gays (e.g., "Unless we
get medically lucky, in three or four years, one of the options discussed
will be the extermination of homosexuals") led to his removal from a number
of professional organizations, and his censure by a court of law.

The site details how groups like the Family Research Council, the ex-gay movement,
and the American Family Association to this day use Cameron's debunked
"research" to malign gays.

Matthew Shepard's death has awakened America to the reality of hate crimes.

"In the wake of Matt Shepard's death, the religious right has been in a
frenzied denial of their hateful speech. But the facts - and this Web site
- speak for themselves," said John Aravosis of Wired Strategies. "The
quotes on this Web site are not just un-American, they're un-Christian,"
added Aravosis.

"Militant fundamentalists can't continue to dehumanize gay people, then
feign shock when one gets bashed or killed," said Aravosis. "Matt's
killers were anti-gay bigots who found solace in a culture that demonizes
gay people as perverts, pedophiles, and pagans. Religious right hate
speech feeds and nurtures this culture. It's time we shamed them into
stopping speech that amounts to a loaded gun."

Sample Quotes from the Site:

Pat Robertson:"many of those people involved in Adolf Hitler were Satanists, many of them
were homosexuals, the two things seem to go together, it is a pathology it
is a sickness."

Family Research Council:
"There is a strong undercurrent of pedophilia in the homosexual subculture."

American Family Association:
"Prominent homosexual leaders and publications have voiced support for
pedophilia, incest, sadomasochism, and even bestiality."

Colorado for Family Values:"homosexuals, while representing perhaps 2% of the population, perpetrate
more than one-third of all reported child molestations."